‘Can anyone name Tony Soprano’s horse?’ says Marc Baron, our tour guide, standing in the aisle of a leaking coach at the start of The Sopranos Bus Tour of New Jersey. The answer of course is Pie-O-My, and because we’re all addicts of the TV series, The Sopranos, we all know the name and shout it out.
The Sopranos are New Jersey gangsters with suburban issues. The show finished its US run a few weeks ago and the adventures of Tony Soprano, an obese but strangely sexy Mafia boss, are now sleeping with the fishes — but the fans take longer to die. The last episode will air in Britain in September and I am on the Bada Bing Bus (the Bada Bing is Tony’s lap-dancing club) with a damp assortment of English, Dutch and Australian coach-potatoes. None of us has seen the last episode yet, but already we’re in mourning for Tony & co. It is raining great pasta pots.
Before we head off to the International House of Pancakes, Joseph Gannasacoli, who played a gay mobster called Vito, appears on the coach. Gannasacoli has written A Meal to Die For, ‘a cookbook novel about a chef who cooks for the mob’. He wrote it to celebrate losing 160 pounds of fat after stomach surgery. ‘Hello, my friends,’ he says, and produces copies of his book. So we pay him $25 dollars for his cookbook novel; he smiles uneasily and leaves. ‘OK,’ says Marc (‘OK’ is his favourite word). ‘We are now going to play the credits for the first episode.’ The credits roll on the bus’s TV and we clap like idiots as we head for New Jersey.
New Jersey looks like a monumental Croydon — all flyovers, dystopian bridges and waste. ‘Jersey is the No. 1 producer of chemicals in America,’ says Marc, ‘and it is also the diner capital of the world. Why are New Yorkers depressed all the time?’ He adds. We shake our heads. ‘Because the light at the end of the tunnel is New Jersey.’
We draw up outside a building. We cannot see anything through the rain, but Marc tells us it featured in the credits scene. ‘Normally there is the most amazing view of Manhattan from here,’ says Marc. ‘But not today.’ The next stop is the White Manna diner. Again we can see nothing. ‘Elvis Presley ate here once,’ says Marc. ‘He had a cheeseburger and his guitar was stolen from his car. It is also the place where Tony’s wife Carmela told her son AJ to ‘act like a good Catholic for 25 f***ing minutes. Is that too much to ask?’
‘OK,’ says Marc. ‘No one here knows what happens at the end of The Sopranos, right? So let’s discuss some possible endings. How about — Tony dies?’ A woman at the back screams. Women love Tony Soprano. He is a spaghetti-sucking Mr Rochester, all huge knuckles and ennui. ‘Tony is super hot,’ says Kim from Iowa, who is sitting next to me. ‘You just want to make him love you.’ We go on a Tony-themed reverie, stopped only by Marc saying, ‘OK. How about Tony goes to jail?’ This has a few takers, from Essex and Amsterdam. ‘Maybe…’ they mutter. ‘Or,’ continues Marc, ‘how about he enters Witness Protection like Henry Hill in Goodfellas?’
We argue while Marc entertains us with Sopranos trivia. If you answer correctly, he throws a packet of pasta at you. Why is the gangster ‘Big Pussy’ called ‘Big Pussy’? (Because Tony’s No. 3 was the best cat burglar in Jersey.) What animal did Christopher, Tony’s nephew, kill? (He sat on his girlfriend Adriana’s dog.) ‘OK,’ says Marc. ‘We are coming up to the Muffler Man. Get ready.’
We turn and see a giant fibreglass redneck. Then we see the Pulaski skyway ramp. Next we admire a misty sanitation building called Barrone International Waste Management. Then — oh joy! — Big Pussy’s backyard: a graveyard called the Holy Name Mausoleum. Next are the batting cages ‘AJ and Big Pussy have a talk in’, the driving range where Tony takes his first ever Prozac pill.
As we head to the Pork Store — a meat-market and coffee bar where the Sopranos crew discuss mob business — our bus gets trapped on a water-logged road. To distract us Marc puts on episode 1 and promises us all a refund. ‘Look how skinny Tony was at the beginning of the show,’ he says. ‘Is everyone OK?’ And so we sit, watching the pilot episode of The Sopranos in industrial New Jersey, as the rain rises to the door.
For details of the Sopranos Bus Tour go to www.sceneontv.com/tour.php/sopranos/
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